---
title: “Here I have sat waiting hour after hour, and have not even two stic… — The Blue Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: “Here I have sat waiting hour after hour, and have not even two sticks to lay across each other under the Christmas porridge-pot.” Who acts: old woman. A sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Why the Sea Is Salt, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Blue Fairy Book, Why the Sea Is Salt, sentence 25

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“Here I have sat waiting hour after hour, and have not even two sticks to lay across each other under the Christmas porridge-pot.”

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**Who acts:** old woman · **What happens:** sit, wait, have, lay · **To what, where:** two sticks, each

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This is a sentence of «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Why the Sea Is Salt. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (old woman), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher.** This tree is Mova's own parse (the `en` model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg503:20:25
# text = “Here I have sat waiting hour after hour, and have not even two sticks to lay across each other under the Christmas porridge-pot.”
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Here	here	ADV	RB	PronType=Dem	5	advmod	_	_
3	I	I	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Sing|Person=1|PronType=Prs	5	nsubj	_	_
4	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	sat	sit	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	0	root	_	_
6	waiting	wait	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	5	xcomp	_	_
7	hour	hour	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	_
8	after	after	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
9	hour	hour	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
10	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	12	punct	_	_
11	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	12	cc	_	_
12	have	have	VERB	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	5	conj	_	_
13	not	not	PART	RB	Polarity=Neg	15	advmod	_	_
14	even	even	ADV	RB	_	15	advmod	_	_
15	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	16	nummod	_	_
16	sticks	stick	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	12	obj	_	_
17	to	to	PART	TO	_	18	mark	_	_
18	lay	lay	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	12	advcl	_	_
19	across	across	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
20	each	each	DET	DT	ExtPos=PRON|PronType=Rcp	18	obl	_	_
21	other	other	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	20	fixed	_	_
22	under	under	ADP	IN	_	27	case	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	27	det	_	_
24	Christmas	Christmas	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	27	compound	_	_
25	porridge	porridge	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	27	compound	_	SpaceAfter=No
26	-	-	PUNCT	HYPH	_	25	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
27	pot	pot	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	18	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
28	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
29	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **sit** *in a quote* | present · perfect | the old woman *= woman* |  |  | here |  |  | tree rules |
| 2 | **wait** *in a quote* | gerund | the old woman *= woman* *not said here* |  |  |  | hour |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |
| 3 | **have** *in a quote* | present | the old woman *= woman* *not said here* | two sticks |  |  |  |  | vn birth-28.2-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent stick=Patient |
| 4 | **lay** *in a quote* | to-infinitive | the old woman *= woman* *not said here* |  |  | each |  | under the Christmas porridge pot | vn put\_spatial-9.2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent under pot=Destination |

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One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

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**Text:** «The Blue Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 503 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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